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House of the year inspiring or what!


MikeSharp01

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I wasn't same old tired ideas doing the rounds again. They were all pretty much large oblong boxes stuck together. That and the size of them were ridiculous like we are all millionaires who can build massive houses for just an odd few people to inhabit and they wonder why we have a housing shortage.

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2 hours ago, recoveringacademic said:

 

But if you abstract some of the ideas contained within those builds , @MikeSharp01 's idea above, and apply them to your own build, then maybe the oblong boxes would be a little more palatable. And that's achievable on most budgets.

 

Setting aside the fact that Grand Designs House of the Year is nothing short of a "willy waving" exercise for RIBA and Kevin McCloud.........

 

I do think that's the point and in fairness it was a point that was made on the program last night. No its not representative of the vast majority of builds BUT innovation on these types of "grand designs" does and can trickle down into the mainstream.

 

Its really no different than "concept cars", "formula 1" and "London Fashion Week". All are examples of ridiculous sums of money, grand designs and pomp. But, whats there does make its way down into "the common herd" where us mortals reside.

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2 hours ago, recoveringacademic said:

@Gimp I agree. Some of the houses were a bit 'rarefied'.  

 

But if you abstract some of the ideas contained within those builds , @MikeSharp01 's idea above, and apply them to your own build, then maybe the oblong boxes would be a little more palatable. And that's achievable on most budgets.

My point entirely, why abstract the ideas on there why not instead have your own. For sure your house doesn't have to be entirely unique and indeed is unlikely to be but the lifting up off a lot of ideas of others and placing them in your home just seems pointless to me like your home would be a clone of others around it. You may have one or two ideas from elsewhere and of course now common systems like MHVR fair enough but I just think it gets so boring when seeing the same ideas being regurgitated on TV then copied by Architects and self builders as if it is something new. Stuff like exposed ply board, large screen windows, exposed copper plumbing fittings, light bulbs dangling down, concrete kitchen worktops, grinded smooth concrete floors, etc all have been doing the rounds for quite a number of years now on TV on all the different building design programmes there now old hat. The moment of real development as a designer I think is when you wish to discard all of that and design a totally different aesthetic from the 'as seen on TV' designs. This though requires careful thinking so as to get it right and a willingness to move away from the dominant design ideas of the day. 

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Whilst I think Gimp has a valid point - apply your own ideas - this relies on having ideas. Talking to most people they, like us, are fairly clueless about design. They make progress by seeing programmes like Grand Designs and similar shows. We can't be the only ones saying "Like that", "that's horrible", "That might work", "look at those terrible Thermal Bridges". Sensible folk also visit as many houses as they can and talk to house owners about what works and what doesn't.

 

As it happens we don't have "exposed ply board, large screen windows, exposed copper plumbing fittings, light bulbs dangling down, concrete kitchen worktops, grinded smooth concrete floors" but we did consider them all - if only briefly.

 

I suggest visiting new showhouses of the mass builders for really generic solutions. 

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4 hours ago, Gimp said:
7 hours ago, recoveringacademic said:

@Gimp I agree. Some of the houses were a bit 'rarefied'.  

 

But if you abstract some of the ideas contained within those builds , @MikeSharp01 's idea above, and apply them to your own build, then maybe the oblong boxes would be a little more palatable. And that's achievable on most budgets.

My point entirely, why abstract the ideas on there why not instead have your own.

Ah.. good point on one level BUT (won't use the consultants AND here) it is not possible for humans to have spontaneous ideas. The ideas we have are in fact new combinations of things we already know. This is how progress happens. So to have your own ideas you need a feed of ideas to combine in new ways and it is this feed stock that I think house of the year does for me. Once upon a time... someother time.

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At times I though I was watching Plot Of The Year.  The houses were decent but relied on their plots for the wow factor, and particularly in the case of the cantilever were in danger of overpowering their plot.  The two that went through struck me as the right choice and valid entries but I don't see them as in the same league as last years winner.  It is nonetheless an inspiring show and for me there's lots to take away and appreciate without needing to actually like the houses.

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The thing that always strikes me about these kind of "modern box" houses, is you would think nobody lived in them. There is never any "stuff" about the place. It's all crisp, clean and bare, like walking into a hotel room with no personal effects to be seen.

 

I could not live that way, that is for sure.
 

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16 minutes ago, ProDave said:

The thing that always strikes me about these kind of "modern box" houses, is you would think nobody lived in them. There is never any "stuff" about the place. It's all crisp, clean and bare, like walking into a hotel room with no personal effects to be seen.

 

I could not live that way, that is for sure.
 

 

I guess it's a classic case of "each to their own". My wife can't abide "stuff" or "personal effects" on display. To own them is fine, to display them is just wrong. Even books must be hidden. 

 

As for my office......well that's off limits and can best be described as "Devine Chaos" :D 

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3 minutes ago, CC45 said:

The thing that reminds me of home is the fact that all the lights are on, no matter how much I nag or turn them off, they still get left on with us.

 

Do you have children by any chance?

I don't think you ever learn to turn the lights off until you are the one paying the electricity bill !!

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On 11/26/2016 at 23:04, CC45 said:

No, just a missus that clearly doesn't realise we could do more fun things than spend our cash on leci!

 

I have one of those.  The standing joke (although I'm certainly not laughing) is that I'd come home from work in winter to find literally every single light in the house on!  I'd spend the first five minutes going around turning off lights that were on in rooms that no-one had entered for hours.  I get that the kids don't pay attention but it drives me mental that my wife just doesn't see this.  It's the same with the dishwasher - she'll put it on at 10 o'clock in the evening in summer, when it's dark, rather then the next day when we may have several excess kilowatts being producing from the PV for several hours.  Or she'll put it on 75% full right before we sit down to dinner!

 

I've managed to claw a bit back recently by changing the programming on our home automation system.  Now, the utility room, bathrooms, and the kids' bedrooms are on timers.  Since I'm the only one who can program it, there's nothing they can do about it!   :ph34r:B|  

 

Oh, and I've also installed an "all off upstairs" switch in a central downstairs position, and an "all off downstairs" switch in a central upstairs position.  Very convenient way of turning off an entire floor's worth of lighting, and something worth considering if you'd doing home automation.

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1 hour ago, jack said:


 

 Oh, and I've also installed an "all off upstairs" switch in a central downstairs position, and an "all off downstairs" switch in a central upstairs position.  Very convenient way of turning off an entire floor's worth of lighting, and something worth considering if you'd doing home automation.

I hope that is wired as a 2 way switching system, otherwise you (or SWMBO) will get very annoyed at having to go upstairs to turn on the "downstairs master switch"

 

As a point of principle I almost always wire the hall switch as 2 way switching upstairs and down as well as the landing light (how any times have you gone upstairs to bed and realised the hall light is still on)
 

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No, it's just a dumb retractive switch that's wired to the home automation system.  It can in theory be used to control anything that's controlled by the home automation system.

 

In fact, the upstairs one was intended to be a lightswitch for a light right beside it, but there's no light installed there yet.  The upstairs "all off" function is actually intended to be controlled from the master bedroom bedside switches, but we're still in the guest room while restitution of our ceiling takes place, so I temporarily re-mapped the "all off" functionality to the spare switch in the upstairs landing alcove.

 

Once we finish installing everything, hitting the "good night" switch will turn off the driveway and internal garage/workshop lights (if on), and shut the garage door if it's detected as still being open.  

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On 25/11/2016 at 22:26, ProDave said:

The thing that always strikes me about these kind of "modern box" houses, is you would think nobody lived in them. There is never any "stuff" about the place. It's all crisp, clean and bare, like walking into a hotel room with no personal effects to be seen.

 

I could not live that way, that is for sure.
 

 

Ours was like that for the first week after we moved in - then we started to empty the caravan, shed and container. Full of junk again now...

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4 hours ago, jack said:

 

Oh, and I've also installed an "all off upstairs" switch in a central downstairs position, and an "all off downstairs" switch in a central upstairs position.  Very convenient way of turning off an entire floor's worth of lighting, and something worth considering if you'd doing home automation.

 

I've done this in the last couple of places we did. It's one of the great things about having automated lighting. In the barn conversion we went one step further and integrated the alarm with the lighting. There was a "bedtime" button which set the ground floor PIR's active and the lights off. 

We also had the lights pulse on and off if the alarm was triggered. 

 

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9 hours ago, CC45 said:

I've thought about changing the missus to an economic model!  Cheaper and probably more fun I suspect - I just can't face all those years of intensive training though...

Is that training for you or her? (I think we know the answer)
 

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11 hours ago, Barney12 said:

 

I've done this in the last couple of places we did. It's one of the great things about having automated lighting. In the barn conversion we went one step further and integrated the alarm with the lighting. There was a "bedtime" button which set the ground floor PIR's active and the lights off. 

We also had the lights pulse on and off if the alarm was triggered. 

 

Yes, all of the alarm sensors are fed back into the home automation system, as are the external PIRs (well the wirings there - still haven't got the PIRs up yet!).  Once it's all up and running, the "all off" button will set the home automation side of the alarm to night mode.

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It's interesting that we are talking about the abstract concepts out there. I agree, not many people can afford these but certainly makes for a fascinating viewing. Working on one of these 'TV property programmes', I see a lot of people striving to input their unique ideas so as to be less of a clone of others around them but it has to always come back to budget!

 

Is it your dream home if it's hell to get to it? 

 


 

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